Although the virtual currency market has been in a bear trend this year, other areas in the market have been expanding. Cryptocurrency teller machines have expanded all over the world and allowed several new customers to have access to virtual currencies.
Bitcoin (BTC) and other virtual currencies had a very negative year taking into account their price. Bitcoin lost more than 82% of its value and other digital assets fell more than 95%. But crypto ATMs continue to expand and in 2018 more than doubled in number.
According to data provided by DataLight in Twitter, the company says that there were 6 crypto ATMs instaled per day around the world. Data Light informed on the matter:
“Even despite the ongoing bear market, the number of crypto ATM’s doubled in 2018. Apart from Bitcoin, such machines offer Ethereum, Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
This is how the world adopts a new kind of ATMs – the ones that sell crypto. pic.twitter.com/qD1tIFNYsp
— DataLight (@DataLightMe) December 19, 2018
The majority of the new ATMs have been installed during the first part of the year. This is clearly correlated to the interest in virtual currencies and their price. Back in December 2017, Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $20,000 and since then it dropped down to $3,250.
According to Coin ATM Radar, there are currently 4085 ATMs installed. 71.8% of them are located in North America, including Mexico and Panama, with 9 and 10 ATMs respectively. The next region is Europe, with 23% of the ATMs installed. Austria is a clear leader in Europe with 6.4% of the ATMs worldwide.
Asia has 106 ATMs, representing 2.6% of the total, Oceania has 54 (1.3%), South America 45 (1.1%) and Africa 7 (0.2%). 55.9% of the ATMs are located in the United States.
The information provided by Data Light shows that there was just one month, November 2015, in which the number of ATMs around the world got reduced. In April of the current year, 257 ATMs were installed.
It is important to mention that of the total number of ATMs installed, the majority support Bitcoin, followed by Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), among others.
